The Mallen Girl Read online

  ‘I don’t want John to be very fond of me, and you know that.’

  ‘Barbara! Come.’ Miss Brigmore now caught hold of her hand and pulled her toward the couch, and when they were both seated she looked straight into her face for a moment before she said, ‘You’re no longer a child, not even a young girl, you are on the threshold of womanhood…’

  ‘Oh, Brigie, Brigie, please!’ The words were drawn out, and now Barbara covered her face with her hands and she kept them there for a moment before slowly dragging them downwards to her neck and gripping it while her eyes remained closed. When she opened her eyes and looked into Miss Brigmore’s startled face she said flatly, ‘I’m not going to marry John, so get that plan out of your mind. Anyway, he doesn’t want me.’

  Miss Brigmore’s tightly bound bust stretched. She swallowed twice before saying, ‘Of course he wants you.’

  ‘What makes you think so? Because he’s kind to me? John’s kind to everybody, polite and kind…and wary. Nobody really knows what John’s thinking. But I know what he isn’t thinking; he isn’t thinking of asking me to marry him. At the present moment he doesn’t even like me. And he’s like all the rest, always has been, he’s sorry for me. Anyway, can you imagine me in Manchester mouthing my way among his friends? How…are…you…Mrs…Moneybags…? How’s-ta-mill?’

  ‘Stop it! Stop it this moment.’ Miss Brigmore, reverting to nursery days, slapped out at Barbara’s hands; and as if she had been struck a blow on the face, Barbara sprang to her feet and her voice was muffled now as she said, ‘Don’t do that, Brigie! You said I was no longer a child, so don’t treat me as one. And let us put this matter straight once and for all. There’s only one person I want to marry and you know who that is. You’ve always known, as I have; and if I can’t have him I’ll have no-one.’

  Miss Brigmore’s lips were trembling, and her fingers could do nothing to still their trembling. She kept patting them as if trying to stop herself from speaking, but the words came out slowly and sadly as she said, ‘You can’t marry Michael.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because…well, there are so many things against it.’

  ‘You mean Aunt Constance?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘She hates me. Do you know that? Aunt Constance hates me. You know something else? I hate her.’

  ‘Barbara! Barbara!’ Miss Brigmore bowed her head now and held her brow in her hand; then her head was jerked up as if someone had given her a blow under the chin and she was staring at Barbara as the girl said rapidly, ‘But she’d better be careful and not try me too far else I’ll explode her nice comfortable little world. I know something about her, I’ve known it for years but I’ve kept it to myself. But if she stops me having Michael I’ll see she won’t have him either.’

  Miss Brigmore felt very sick. When she spoke her lips were widely articulating but her voice was a mere whisper. ‘What do you mean? What can you possibly do to separate Constance and Michael?’ But even as she asked the question she was already aware of the answer that Barbara was going to give her.

  ‘I could tell him that Mama whom he idolises and imagines is a queen among women is nothing more than a slut, and he nothing more than a bastard.’

  Miss Brigmore felt she was going to faint. She put out her hand and gripped the head of the couch, all the while staring into Barbara’s passion-swept face; and when Barbara, now bending toward her, her voice low and heavy with excitement, said, ‘I am right? I am right then?’ Miss Brigmore closed her eyes and shook her head while Barbara went on, ‘I knew I was, I knew I was, for I found the proof of it. Why else would she have his picture hidden in her collar drawer? I found it years ago when she sent me up to her room for a handkerchief. Why should she keep her brother-in-law’s picture hidden away in her drawer and not her husband’s, I ask you? And they weren’t real brothers either, only half-brothers, for her husband was the son of Uncle Thomas. He was a bastard too because Mrs Radlet was never married to Uncle Thomas. You were his housekeeper, you should have known she was a…’

  Miss Brigmore was on her feet now and was crying, ‘Don’t you dare use that word again in my presence! What has come over you, girl? You’re acting like a fiend. All these years of training and this is the result; you are talking like some low kitchen slut.’

  ‘I am merely speaking the truth.’

  ‘Truth!’ Miss Brigmore barked the word. Then her head moved slowly from side to side before she said, ‘Girl, you know nothing about the truth,’ and a voice inside her added, ‘I hope to God you never do,’ while at the same time she knew that this was the opportune moment in which to tell her all the truth, the complicated, bitter truth of her own beginnings. But she warned herself against taking such action for the result might be disastrous, coming as it would on top of this distressing scene.

  As Barbara glared back into Miss Brigmore’s face that for once was showing neither understanding, nor love, nor compassion, there was in her the craving to probe into something that she felt was being withheld from her. But there was also that in her, the fear that made her shy away from the knowledge; the fear was like a mist that was pursuing her and would one day catch up with her and envelop her, and she’d become lost in it.

  They were staring at each other in as near enmity as they had ever been when Katie’s voice came from the landing, calling, ‘Are you there, Barbara? Barbara!’ There was a sound of a door opening and closing, then another, and a tap came on Miss Brigmore’s door. Before she could speak it opened and Katie bounced in. Her round face was alight, her eyes shining; she was swinging her bonnet widely by the strings, but as she looked from one to the other she brought the swinging bonnet to a stop and, taking in the tense situation, she said, ‘I’m sorry; I didn’t know you were…’ She paused for a word to substitute for arguing, because she knew from experience that when Barbara got on her high horse a discussion could quickly turn into an argument, and an argument into open battle, and so, lamely, she substituted, ‘busy’.

  ‘No, no, we’re not busy, Katie. Do come in.’ It looked to Katie as if Miss Brigmore were openly welcoming the intrusion, and when adopting her usually polite manner she asked, ‘Have you had an enjoyable day?’ Katie answered on a high laugh, ‘Oh wonderful! It’s been fun. He’s great fun is Mr Ferrier, so very entertaining. You wouldn’t have approved a bit, Brigie, because he made me laugh out loud in public in the tearoom.’

  ‘You had tea?’

  ‘Yes. In a sort of club, gentlemen’s club. The seats were plush, and there were waiters. It was all so very grand.’ She ended her words in mock solemnity, then burst out laughing. Now, turning fully to Barbara, she asked. ‘Did you have a good day?’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘So we’ve all had a good day.’

  There was a slight pause in the conversation as she and Barbara looked at each other; then swinging the bonnet once more, Katie addressed herself in mocking tones to Miss Brigmore but in such a way that Barbara could read her. ‘I have to inform you, Brigie, that I am going to dinner at Burndale Manor. Evening dinner, not a three o’clock do, with entertainment to follow. I’m going to get an evening dress cut low, right down to—’ She was pointing to the middle of her breasts when Miss Brigmore said stiffly, ‘And you accepted without consulting your parents?’

  ‘Oh, Brigie!’ Katie swung the bonnet in Miss Brigmore’s direction. ‘Mother’s tickled to death; I’ve just told her, and she said—’ Now she adopted an attitude very like that of her mother. Holding out her arms and wagging her head, her voice took on the unmistakable Manchester accent: ‘“Well lass, what d’you think of that! You’re going up in the world, eh?”’

  ‘Don’t make mock of your mother, Katie.’ Miss Brigmore’s voice was stern, and Katie, now standing still, her bonnet held between her hands, looked straight at Miss Brigmore. ‘I am not making mock of my mother, not in the way you imply; and if I may mimic her face to face and she doesn’t object I cannot see why…’

  Miss B
rigmore, her voice still stern, now checked her with, ‘If you cannot see why there is a difference in what you do in the privacy of your family and with its members, and what you do outside it, I’m afraid all my years of teaching have been for nought.’

  Katie continued to look into Miss Brigmore’s face before she said slowly and in the diction of which Miss Brigmore would have approved, ‘I have been labouring under a false impression then; in fact, I think I may be correct in saying our entire family have been labouring under a false impression; and that impression has been created by you, because we, for our part, considered you were of our family. But I know now that we have presumed, and you are still Miss Brigmore and we are still the Benshams and that the gulf between us is very wide.’

  Miss Brigmore again had her fingers across her lips and was about to speak when Katie swung round and made for the door. But when she pulled it open with a jerk she was brought to stop; confronting her was the upper housemaid, Jenny Dring. Her hand raised as if about to knock, she gabbled, ‘Oh! Miss, miss; the master wants you in the bedroom. It’s the mistress! she’s, she’s…’

  ‘But…but I was…I’ve just left her.’

  ‘It’s happened suddenly.’

  As Katie ran from the girl Miss Brigmore hurried to the door. ‘What has happened?’ she asked softly.

  ‘I don’t know, miss, only that everybody’s in a panic down there all of a sudden. The mistress was asking for them, and Mr Brooks sent Armstrong post haste to the stables to get Mr John and find Mr Dan.’ With Barbara behind her, Miss Brigmore now hurried down the stairs and through the gallery, and when they reached the main landing she turned to Barbara and said, ‘Go downstairs and wait.’ When Barbara hesitated, she added firmly, ‘Please.’ Then she went toward the door, knocked gently, and entered the bedroom.

  Matilda was lying deep in her pillows; her face was drawn and grey, even her lips looked colourless. They were moving slowly as if mouthing words but making no sound, and Harry Bensham’s voice, gentle and his tone unlike any Miss Brigmore had heard, was saying, ‘Yes, lass; it’s all right, everything’ll be done as you want.’ Then, his words dropping into muttered thickness, he said, ‘Here’s Katie.’ He moved slightly aside but still retained hold of the fat pudgy hand.

  The door behind Miss Brigmore opened and John and Dan entered, and when they went hastily to the bed she could no longer see Matilda’s face, not only because she was surrounded by her family, but because she was allowing herself to cry audibly in public for the first time in her life. She knew in this moment that she was losing a friend, a friend who had considered her one of the family. Yet Katie’s accusation was true, because on her part she had been in the family but not of it. The feeling of superiority that was a natural part of her nature and which had been engendered still further by the association with Thomas Mallen had created a gulf too wide for her to step across and embrace the Benshams, but she had been willing that they should cross it and benefit from the standards she set. She wasn’t, however, entirely to blame for this situation because from the beginning they themselves had set her apart by deferring to her for advice on problems appertaining to the correct procedure to be taken, not only in the running of the household, but in personal matters also.

  She looked toward the wash-hand stand by the side of which the day nurse was standing, her hands idly folded one on top of the other at her waist; and the fact that she was making no move toward the bed seemed to add a touch of absolute finality to Matilda Bensham’s life. Blindly Miss Brigmore turned and went silently from the room.

  Three maids were standing close together at the top of the stairs. They looked at Miss Brigmore’s face and they bowed their heads and began to cry.

  She went on down the stairs and was met at the bottom by Brooks. Brooks had never been the imperturbable butler; he had remained very much a working man; he had not acquired the subservience necessary for a good servant. There was an aggression, not only in his way of addressing one, but even in his stance, that would have made him absolutely unemployable in the capacity of butler in any household other than this.

  Now she looked at him through a tear-misted gaze and saw his chin going into a hard knobbled flatness as his lips pressed tightly against one another, and when he said, ‘It won’t be the same; nothing will be the same,’ she moved her head once as she replied, ‘As you say, Brooks, nothing will be the same.’ She passed him and Armstrong, the first footman, and Alice Conway, the still-room maid, where they were standing with their heads slightly bent, and she went into the drawing room.

  Barbara, sitting on the couch, was not aware of her presence until she stepped in front of her, and when she looked into her face she stammered, saying ‘Sh…she’s not, she’s not?’

  ‘She soon will be.’

  ‘Oh. Oh.’ Barbara’s face now crumpled; and then she whispered, ‘I’m sorry; I am sorry; you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I know that, because you, like me, are losing a very good friend.’ She now lowered herself slowly down on to the couch. Her head bowed and, aloud but to herself, she said, ‘Things will never be the same again. He’s right, so right.’

  It was strange, she thought, that a woman as common as Matilda Bensham had maintained the love of her family through their years of transition from the level on which she herself stood, to the present one, where they could class themselves as equals, at least in manner and speech, with any family in the country.

  On looking back she remembered seeing herself in the position of buffer between Katie, the young lady who would emerge from her teaching and example, and the young lady’s parents, for she had imagined the newly-made young lady would undoubtedly look down upon them. How wrong she had been; Matilda Bensham had evoked a love in her family that could not be marred by education and the trappings of society.

  If only Barbara showed half the love for her that Katie showed toward her mother, then she would have had no need of late to stamp down on the comparisons she was frequently making between them, because these comparisons were creating a deep hollow within her, a hollow wherein she felt she would be forced to spend the remainder of her life.

  Four

  Matilda would have been proud of her funeral, for she had twelve coaches following her coffin, and all the horses wore bouncing black plumes. The drivers of the coaches were encased in deep black with tall shiny hats and bows of black ribbons on their long whips.

  In the first coach sat Harry, John, Dan, and Katie; the next three coaches were taken up with Matilda’s closest relatives. The fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth coaches held those nearest in relationship to Harry, and in the ninth coach sat Miss Brigmore, Barbara and Mr Pat Ferrier.

  Three neighbouring families were also represented. The Eldens had come, father and son, both having taken a day’s leave from their chain of haberdashery businesses in Newcastle and district; the Fairbairns, too, he being of much more note than the Eldens in that he was a mine owner, at least in partnership with Jonathan Pearce; and Mr Pearce was also represented by his son and his son-in-law. That these six gentlemen had been regular visitors at Burndale Manor for many years, being friends of Mr Patrick Ferrier senior until his death, and afterwards continued to visit whenever young Mr Pat was in residence, may have had some bearing on their showing their last respects to a woman to whom they had scoffed, and to whom their wives, after meeting her but once, had resolutely refused to proffer further invitations.

  Following the last carriage came the male servants of the household, then the gardeners; lastly, the farm manager and his men. There were no female servants at the funeral; in fact, it had been a debated question whether any of the female relatives should attend, for it wasn’t really etiquette; but as Harry’s cousin Florrie Talbot had pointed out, who was there to notice or talk in this empty neck of the woods; now, if it had been in Manchester then things would have been different; you had to keep up a certain style there if you didn’t want to get talked about.

  And for once
the female members of the family had agreed with Mrs Talbot.

  The sun was shining brightly; the birds were singing; they seemed to have assembled from the whole countryside in the trees bordering the small cemetery, and their song seemed to mute the sound of the first shovelful of earth being dropped on to the coffin, making it seem as if there were nothing in the highly polished, ornately decorated box. But there was something in it, and Katie, standing between her father and Dan, whimpered, ‘Oh! Mam. Mam.’ Her mother had liked to be called Mam, and so she had often used the term when Brigie wasn’t about. She wondered why she wasn’t crying. Dan was crying silently; she could feel the shudders that were passing through his body. It was odd, she thought, that Dan should be the one to cry. Dan, of course, had had a special love for their mother; it was undemonstrative but deep; she, too, had borne a special love toward her. So why wasn’t she crying? She had hardly shed a tear since her mother had died; she had felt over the past days that because she couldn’t cry she’d never smile again, never love again. All the heart-lifting joy that had been part of her nature had, as it were, sought another course, and was flowing in another direction, a direction that was going to change her life.

  It was just five days ago that she was in Hexham with Pat. He had said she must call him Pat, and before the carriage had reached the Hall he had taken her hand and told her he would like her to see his home, and would she come to dinner? Up till that moment she had looked upon it all as a game; as her mother might have put it, she was tickled to death that a man like Mr Ferrier should be seeking her out, while at the same time she kept her eyes shut to the consequences of his attention. But looking into his face that night, she had been unable any longer to close her eyes and her ears to the question he would be putting to her sooner or later; and also in that moment she was human enough to think, he is next in line to a title…Sir Patrick and Lady Ferrier! She had almost giggled at the picture in her mind. She had giggled, too, a short while later as she bent over her mother and asked in a whisper, ‘How would you like your daughter to have a title?’